The Caller of the Living
by starofoberon
Summary: Description has changed: AU, maybe; Little bit of everything here, principally plot-driven. Supernatural elements. Lots of humor. Lots of dangerous critters. Hotch and Garcia make like crazed weasels. Garcia-centric. Try it out!
1. Chapter 1

**NA: These people (except for the Children of the Caller) are property of their creators, not me. **

**I know that I said I would post nothing in chapters, but I'm making an exception here because I already have all of them written, and because I'm still new here and I see that stories with chapters get most of the reviews, and, frankly, _I have become a total review whore. I'm living for that feedback_. Plus it's all Garcia's fault. She made me do it.**

**The Caller of the Living**

In order to explain why Penelope Garcia was whacking a very large, excessively disgruntled lizard with her purse, it is necessary to step back 48 hours to a morning briefing at the BAU.

_JJ's first problem that morning was getting the team to take her presentation seriously._

Although nobody mentioned it at the time, dismay started right up front, when JJ and her little remote presented pictures of the elderly woman in Tupelo who succumbed to bites from a brown recluse spider.

There were a couple of mumbles when she flashed the pictures of the young man of Beaverton, Oregon, mauled to death by a pack of feral dogs.

By the time she got to the middle-aged Vermont school teacher who contracted rabies from an infected raccoon that had taken up residence in her attic, the mood in the room was downright frosty.

"Take it to Animal Planet," Morgan suggested.

JJ displayed a picture of an eight-story brick building and three smaller outbuildings. "This is where it all comes together. This used to be the physical plant of Sacred Heart Hospital, just inside the city limits of Aiken, South Carolina. Sacred Heart got sucked up in the big medical consolidation frenzy of the 'Nineties, and its land and buildings were sold to a developer, who turned around and sold it, as is, to the Children of the Caller.

"The Children of the Caller is a moderately-sized religious sect, with an estimated membership of nine-hundred adults and a proportionate number of children. Almost all of its members live on the grounds of the hospital property. They're almost invisible in Aiken, because they are neither sequestered nor do they preach in the streets. They don't dress funny, and they don't seem to have any special jargon they use. In fact, they're almost a model of how a sect can mesh with a community.

"They buy and bank locally. Those who work generally work locally. Some of their members attend local AA and NA meetings. They adopted a couple highways for clean up patrol. One serves on the school board, although all but a few of their kids are home-schooled.

Their kids participate in extracurricular activities with the locals – sports, band and orchestra, Scouts, glee club, and Special Ed resources. According to school personnel they were very skeptical at first. They expected child brides and weird rituals. They found just average, good kids. Not perfect. Just completely normal."

David Rossi said, in baffled tones, "But where in the hell does this involve us?"

JJ was not to be rattled. "Their central tenet, their principal identifying belief, is that they communicate with animals through their leader, Brother Eagle, the Caller of the Living. In doing so, they make all the species of Earth more secure and holy.

"And a statistically significant number of their most powerful detractors have been killed by animals recently."

Reid said, "Define statistically significant."

Back to JJ: "Of 23 former members who positioned themselves as highly hostile to the Children of the Caller, nine have died over the past six months, all but one of them in a manner relating to animals. "

"You're kidding. This is for real?" Morgan asked. "We're pretty much gonna be the BAU branch of the ASPCA?"

JJ looked thoughtfully back at the screen for a moment. "So it seems."

"We'll be looking for an UNCRIT then, right?" said Prentiss. "For 'Critter'?"

"Where's Spencer Reid, FBI Veterinarian, when you need him the most?" said Garcia.

"Do _not_ go there, Garcia," warned Reid.

Hotch spoke up at last. "Am I the only person taking this seriously?"

Six heads turned and looked at him and said nothing.

He tossed his pen to spin high into the air and caught it. "Looks like I am," he sighed.


	2. Chapter 2

**Disclaimer: All Criminal Minds characters are the property of CBS and their creators. All I own is this bozo Unsub and his followers.**

So because somebody with a whole lot of juice lived in Colorado, site of two of these deaths-by-critter, it was so ordered that someone [think: answerable to the electorate] send a CYA team just to establish that Brother Eagle wasn't really sending out All Things Bright and Beautiful as his personal hit squads.

And since the individual answerable to the electorate had only one contact with both the juice and the political desperation to follow through, and her name was Erin Strauss, [rings a bell, no?] naturally she ordered David Rossi and Aaron Hotchner personally to fly down to Aiken and suck up to Brother Eagle long enough to clear him of complicity in death-by-critter. Just because she could.

And because Section Chief Erin Strauss also wanted a dweeb from Computer Crimes to owe her a favor, she ordered that the BAU boys would bring along a kick-ass Technical Analyst, because any time anyone says "new religion" someone else says "tax-dodges" and "scams" and "potentially massive money laundering concern."

Kick-Ass Technical Analyst being Ms Penelope Garcia, of course.

_Going to a real suspect interview. _

_With real profilers._

Twenty-four hours later, they still didn't have Brother Eagle's true name. Or age. He apparently had no driver's license, no income, no birth certificate, no education, no Amazon gift certificates, no FaceBook or MySpace presence. No email account. No contributions of any of his favorite critter snapshots to ICanHasCheezburger. No IP address. No nothin'.

This was not for lack of Garcia's best efforts. She found plenty of blog references, both pro and con, but even these, the people who apparently knew him best, knew pretty much nothing about him personally except that he called himself Brother Eagle and he lived in Aiken at the Children of the Caller Center. And he had a jones for Girl Scout cookies. Oh, and he conversed with, and commanded, All Creatures Great and Small.

Yup. Easy ten-minute job.

So there they were. Aaron Hotchner in dark gray linen with a red tie. David Rossi in black silk with a red tie. And Penelope Garcia color-coordinating the team with a satin skirt and top of vertical black stripes, capped by a huge red cloth dahlia in her décolletage. She wore another to the left on her little black chaplet hat, and a third affixed to her right wrist like a prom corsage.

And yellow chunky heel T-straps with purple tulip clips on the toes.

And a blue-sequined clutch purse.

_(Because you don't want to overdo the whole red-white-and-black thing.)_

When they arrived at the site for their appointment, it seemed someone had made a scheduling error. According to the Children's records, their appointment with Brother Eagle was for eleven o'clock, not ten o'clock.

The elderly and harried gate-keeper escorted them to a small metal safe and requested that they lock up all weapons and all their communications devices. The presence of such devices interfered with primal channels into the wild kingdom, he said.

"Yeah, I'll bet," Rossi murmured to Hotch. "And interferes with anybody documenting the guy's hooey."

The gate-keeper said the current task was just regular morning worship service. Once their possessions were secured, they could feel free to take the elevator to eight, and then the stairs to the roof, where the service was held when weather permitted. There they should be privileged to connect with the Caller of the Living when the service concluded.

He said it that way. They should be "privileged."

When they arrived at the top, they saw perhaps 200 people already privileged to be with Brother Eagle. They were mostly adults, with some teens and a sprinkling of preschoolers, singing and clapping to a rhythmic song. Everyone stood; no chairs has been provided. Some of the preschoolers were dancing at the edges of the group.

But abruptly, the singing ended. The entire congregation (if that was what they were) turned almost as one and faced the BAU agents. They re-formed their numbers perpendicular to the way they had been assembled, as if to ensure that everyone got a good look.

They moved toward the agents. And they smiled, and to Garcia, their smiles were scary and grew scarier as they came closer to her and the two men.


	3. Chapter 3

**Disclaimer: I do not own these people. They belong to CBS and the creators of _Criminal Minds_. I can get you a great deal on a used Caller of the Living, though.**

Big smiles on their faces, men, women, and children continued inexorably and silently moving across the roof, spreading out to the edges of the building and forming a shallow crescent with the three agents as the central point, then moving forward in what might be intended as a flanking maneuver.

"Hotch? Sir?" Garcia whispered, "Doesn't it seemed as though they're trying to _herd_ us toward the rear of the building and off the edge?"

He looked for a moment and frowned. "No. Why? Maybe these are border collies that have taken on a human shape?"

"This is so not the time for humor, sir."

"Lighten up, Garcia," said Rossi.

She struggled to maintain her composure. "I can't believe that when we're in danger of being surrounded by a crowd of, of – the _Stepford_ congregation, that world-famous David Rossi told me to lighten up."

"That's the most important time to lighten up," Hotchner added. "When you're in danger of losing your perspective."

Garcia glanced over her shoulder. "Guys," she muttered, "you've probably already noticed, but there's nothing but a little five-inch high rail behind us. It's like they've designed it to trip people, not hold them back. Will you look at this? Will you please take me seriously?"

If this crowd proved to be hostile, they were in a no-win situation, hopelessly outnumbered. Garcia clasped her clutch bag to her bosom and tried not to hyperventilate. She reminded herself that she was, after all, with the best of the BAU's best. If there was any way out of this, Hotchner and Rossi would find it.

_But hurry up, guys. Do something clever._

Hotch pulled out his credentials.

_Yeah, that's always a big crowd-pleaser ..._

"I'm SSA Aaron Hotchner from the FBI," Aaron called loudly enough to be heard at the rear of the crescent. "This is Agent Rossi and Technical Analyst Garcia. We have an appointment to speak with Brother Eagle."

"And you're speaking to him," said a reasonable-sounding voice from somewhere in the silent crowd. There was an audible sighing kind of sound. The people ceased to move toward the agents. "Just 'Eagle' is fine," the voice continued. "My friends call me Eeg."

_Yes, reasonable. Bring on the reasonable, by all means. I'm suddenly a huge fan of reasonable. _

And then things got weird.

The crowd parted and there was just this one youngish, plumpish guy with a long ponytail of medium brown hair. Nothing remotely interesting about him. He could be overlooked in a crowd of three. He was standing there all alone in jeans, running shoes, and rugby shirt. The people around him were melting away to whatever places they spent their non-worship time in.

But that wasn't the weird part.

The youngish guy moved one arm as if to draw a half-circle over his head, like a cartoon sunset or a Kilroy. As he moved it in its arc, a swarm of insects appeared, spiraling out of its wake. There was no doubt in Garcia's mind. The insects hadn't come from any other place. Nobody had cracked open a crate of Acme Swarming Insects somewhere behind the guy on cue. They just weren't there, and then the air was filled with them. Within seconds, the swarm measured an easy 20 feet in diameter, and Brother Eagle was their center point. It was an awesome and mind-blowing performance.

"Do you see what I see?" Garcia asked Rossi. "Do you hear them?" but he didn't answer.

They were wasps, for the most part, hundreds of them, maybe thousands. Principally yellowjackets and those nasty blue-black things that have that really creepy low buzz like a distant chainsaw or wood-chipper, but plenty of representatives from the bee and hornet contingents, too.

Garcia dropped her purse. She thought she would pee herself or faint dead away. Or both. From the strained "Jesus," she heard out of Rossi's lips, he was looking at the same limited menu of choices.

Brother Eagle stood straight at the core of his insects with his eyes closed in apparent bliss. He extended his hands and raised his voice.

"_And suddenly_," he thundered, "_there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host, praising God and saying, Glory to God in the highest, and peace on earth_."

"Is either of you afraid of stinging insects?" Garcia asked, aiming for a conversational tone. "'Cause I'm not, but I'm prepared to learn."

"Terrified," Hotch confessed in a hushed whisper, his face paper-white. "I always have been."


	4. Chapter 4

**Disclaimer: They aren't mine, folks. They belong to their creators and CBS. Except the bad guys. They're mine.**

They probably looked like a trio of goobers, standing there in slack-jawed amazement at the cloud of wasps that the Brother Eagle had conjured.

Keeping her attention focused on Eagle and his loudly-buzzing mass of assembled insects, Garcia groped with her right hand for Hotchner's left. It was quite bad enough to confront a personal fear. Being in a position where he had to admit it in front of members of his team, the people he always needed to be so strong and dependable for, must have made it particularly painful.

She finally located his hand and grasped it. "We're all a little freaked, sir, I think," she said softly, "but we're in this together, and we'll get through it together."

_Lame. Totally lame and sucky. Why can't I think of anything wise to say?_

"As impressive as it may look, that's magic you're looking at," Rossi said with confidence. Penelope was happy to hear that. She took Rossi's hand with her left hand.

_Nice confidence. Good little, happy little confidence. I just love confidence from confident people. _

"Stay calm, don't fall for it," he continued. "Our eyes are betraying us. It's nothing but an illusion. It's carried off skillfully, but it's still a trick. We all know that swarms of stinging insects simply don't materialize in mid-air."

Although Garcia thought Rossi had spoken too softly for Brother Eagle to hear him, as if in answer, a section of the swarm peeled itself off from the others and zeroed in on them, like bees from a hive in a cartoon.

_OK, here's where I lose it._

She watched in horror as the insects made their way toward them across the roof. She was poised to run, but Rossi held his ground. So did Hotch, although she thought she heard a ghost of a whimper from him.

This new independent section flew rings around the three of them, first as a group, then as individuals. Any silly notion about optical illusions died quickly as first a couple, then dozens of insects landed on each person's hands, neck, and face, and Penelope's legs. Wherever skin was bare, the little bastards landed. There they waited, tense and quivering, as if expecting a command to unsheathe their stingers. She could almost feel them thrumming with anticipation. She had to close her eyes because otherwise they would crawl right across her eyeballs. She thought one was trying to creep up her nostril.

She wanted to scream. She wanted to cry. She wanted to run away. She wanted to jump up and down frantically brushing the creatures off her body.

Instead, she stood perfectly still, chin up, eyes forward, trying to squint through the teeniest, tiniest crack of eyelid. And she and Rossi and Hotch clutched at each others' hands so fiercely she thought there would certainly be some broken fingers before they were done.

And then the ones on her legs started exploring further up her thighs.

_Help me somebody God please help me_

Brother Eagle pointed vigorously, even enthusiastically, in their direction, like a game show host identifying the next contestant.

All the wasps that had been crawling over them and surrounding them dropped away and fell dead at their feet. No drama, no final words, no sentimental strings wailing on the soundtrack of their pitiful little wasp lives. Just Doornail City. Not even a last cadaveric spasm, if insects actually had them.

_Do they? Must ask Reid about that_.

What felt like an hour but was probably more like fifteen or twenty seconds passed as once again Garcia familiarized herself with a new universe with different rules.

Then she freed herself from the sweaty grip of her associates' hands. She bent down and opened her bag. With one of her business cards, she scraped an assortment of dead insects into her purse. Brother Eagle said nothing to dissuade her, which meant, she reasoned, that either the insects were all real, and he really could "call the living;" or they were trickery, but Brother Eagle didn't give a crap whether they found him out or not.

_Oooh, third possibility: They'll make me leave my purse here._

_Fourth possibility, I'm not leaving this place alive._

She straightened up, fluffed her hair in what she hoped was an insouciant way, tucked her bag under her arm, and put on her game face. She flashed Brother Eagle what she hoped was an _I've seen better tricks_ kind of look. Then to her teammates, trying for casual, she said, "Well, that was way creepy."

"Jesus, Garcia, where've you been?" Rossi muttered. "We passed creepy five minutes ago."

Eagle said, "Agent Hotchner, my little flying friends tell me that you have a weapon you didn't check at the gate. My little flying friends never lie. Give it to me now."

Hotch looked as if he was calculating whether to bluff it out, but a new section of the swarm of wasps broke away from the main body and settled pretty much all over his left ankle. He lowered himself to his right knee and carefully tried to reach around the wasps to lift his trouser leg. Garcia noted the tremors in his hands and hoped that Brother Eagle had not. The wasps crawled off his leg and onto his hands, but apparently none of them stung him. He detached the little Glock 27 and its holster, set them down on the concrete, and pushed them toward Eagle.

She half expected the tiny flying army to pick up the gun and carry it back to Brother Eagle like the bluebirds in the Disney cartoon -- was it Cinderella? Or Snow White? But they didn't. As Hotch rose back to his feet again, they broke free and flew back to their master. Or creator. Or whatever he was.

Little freak.

Brother Eagle walked out of his cloud of insects and picked up the gun and holster. He put the Glock in his pocket and dropped the holster to the concrete before he returned to the center of his contingent of stinging buddies.

Strutting. The little sonuvabitch was practically strutting.

Garcia had an unwelcome song lyric take up residence in her brain. Some operetta or musical from some long ago theater trip gave her the words "a cold perspiration bespangled his brow," and one was certainly bespangling hers right now. She was out in the bright sunshine of a South Carolina August, and she wished she had brought a wrap, because she couldn't stop shivering.

She wanted to whimper, _OK, now, that isn't a fucking illusion, Rossi, so how in the hell did he do it?_ She found herself, however, incapable of speech. A part of her, a nasty, selfish, scaredy-cat of a girl, rejoiced that Brother Eagle was putting the screws to Hotch instead of her.

Brother Eagle stretched out his right hand at a _Heil Hitler_ angle and turned himself around once like a hitherto undiscovered verse of the Hokey-Pokey. The entire cloud of insects dropped dead in a ring around him.

He smiled. It was way too nice a smile for someone who killed insects with a thought.

"I'm ready for my interview," he said.


	5. Chapter 5

**Disclaimer: The only entities herein that I own are the bad guys and their critters. All else belongs to CBS and the creators of _Criminal Minds_.**

Chivalry is dead at the FBI, so when Brother Eagle began clattering down the dark and stuffy staircase to his eighth-floor personal quarters, Hotch and Rossi both preceded Garcia.

As they followed him, Penelope Garcia noticed a lone yellowjacket crawling up the back of Rossi's neck. Before she could call attention to it, Rossi reached up to brush away whatever was causing the tickling sensation. When his hand made contact with the wasp, it stung him and flew off. He cursed and shook his hand rapidly, then cautiously touched his neck. He said to Garcia, "Is it gone?" When she replied in the affirmative, he said, "Good. _Damn_, that hurts."

"Was it on your hand, or on your neck?" Garcia asked. "The sting, I mean."

"Both."

"Ew. That's no fun."

"You think?" Rossi grumbled.

Then she saw another wasp, one of the blue-black variety, making its way across her skirt. "Guys," she said aloud, "check yourselves and move carefully. It looks like we've brought more than one of those little boogers in here with us."

Hotch, who had the lead, asked Rossi whether there were any on him. Rossi looked and said he was clear, then said, "Watch the banister." Hotch and Rossi let go of the smooth wood, and Garcia could see from her position in the rear that there was a pair of yellowjackets creeping slowly up the railing.

"I'm sorry about that," Eagle said in tones that sounded anything but apologetic. "They must have tagged along to get the treat."

"Treat?" Hotch asked.

"A huge rush of pleasurable endorphins," Eagle replied. "Nobody can command anything as essentially brainless as a wasp without indulging in large-scale bribery. And, as you have certainly deduced by now, my power flows from willful manipulation of pheromones and electromagnetic fields."

That certainly shut the FBI bunch up for the moment.

As they moved through the (finally!) air-conditioned outer reception area, Brother Eagle casually introduced a middle-aged, sweet-faced woman as Sister Iris, and a tall, saturnine man of about Eagle's age as either Brother Servant or Brother Serpent, Garcia couldn't tell which. She figured she would ask the guys when they drove back to the airfield.

Brother Eagle's office was a very long, narrow rectangle decorated in austere matched Ikea modules. There were no windows, but five doors opened off his office: three to the left, and one each on the right and rear walls. He ignored the far end of the room where his desk was located, and instead joined the FBI contingent in an intimate grouping of five armchairs close to the entrance door.

"Lemonade, anyone?" he asked as he settled himself into his chair. The BAU group declined.

"I beg your pardon for my little show-and-tell up on the roof," he said. "It was pure ego. I wanted to avoid the inevitable argument about whether I can in fact communicate with creatures. After four years, I find dealing with the doubts of outsiders to be tiresome."

"It was impressive," Rossi said. "Can you do it indoors as well as outside?"

Eagle gave a ghost of a smile. "Of course, but given the constraints of construction, it's nowhere as dramatic-looking."

He closed his eyes and bowed his head, then looked up with the fingers of his right hand splayed. Above his palm, there appeared a sphere of buzzing wasps no more than three feet in diameter. "See? It's much better out of doors." He blew softly on the sphere, and the insects fell dead on the carpet.

Garcia shivered again. Hotch's eyes narrowed and he stared wordlessly at the performance.

"That was certainly impressive," said Rossi. "David Copperfield had better watch out."

Brother Eagle glared. "You think it was a trick? A bit of fancy?"

Rossi ignored the show of anger. "Yes, I do. But certainly an exceptional illusion."

"Then what about the stings on your neck and hand? What were they? The power of suggestion?"

"That's something that you'll have to tell me, Brother Eagle, because I can't begin to speculate on that part of the illusion. But I do know enough to know that insects don't generate spontaneously."

Brother Eagle laughed and shook his head. "Eventually, you'll learn. They all learn. Although I'll give you this: The only creatures I can call _ex nihilo_, so to speak, are insects. And for some reason I get my best results with the stingers."

He turned at a low scraping sound, wood moving against wood. "Excuse me, I have to--" He bent and made smooching sounds. "Where's my girlies? Do you smell your snack? " he crooned. "You've been in the wainscoting again, haven't you, you silly little sweeties?"

A dozen large, dark. hairy-looking tarantulas positively scampered across the carpet. They climbed up Eagle's leg and swarmed into his lap, where he lavished them with baby talk and caresses. "Here, girlies, come to Daddy, come to Daddy now, Daddy's got ickle bitty kissies for his babies, yes he does, yes he _does_!"

"This is Amanda," Brother Eagle said. With affection as obvious as his enthusiasm, he lifted up one tarantula at a time for the BAU team to admire and appreciate. "And Wendy, Tina, Joyce, Daisy, Robin, Eliza, and Sadie. Then there's Polly, she doesn't like crowds, so she'll wait down there until a few of the girls move on before she gets up here. And this is Ginny, she's the eldest and she always perches on my shoulder. And – oops, where are Connie and Francine? Here they are, they came up the back way, such clever little girlies.

"Don't forget to eat your little treats before you leave."

He turned to Rossi as though he had forgotten that the team was present. "But I beg your pardon. I'm wasting your time. How may I help the FBI?"

Rossi looked blankly at Brother Eagle and his arachnid pets, especially the two that had climbed back down the man's legs and appeared to be feeding on dead wasps. "Which ones are those?" he asked. "What are their names?"

Eagle leaned over a little. "Ah, that's Daisy, see, she has the little discoloration on her -- oh, never mind. Daisy and Wendy. And if there's food, Wendy is a gimme. She's such a little piglet!"

Rossi nodded. "Thank you, Brother – well, let's use that as our starting point. Is Eagle your first name, or your last name?"

"Neither. My only name is Eagle. It has always been simply Eagle. And obviously, my title is Brother." Eagle scratched gently, idly, at the abdomen of one tarantula and beamed benignly at David Rossi. "And let me address your follow-up questions. I was born at home on October third of nineteen-hundred-and-seventy-seven to a couple who were, even for that era, living completely off the grid. It was there, isolated in the bleak windswept nothingness of Michigan's Upper Peninsula, that my parents learned the basics of communication with birds – gulls and hawks, principally. And I have spent my life building on their knowledge."

Garcia could tell that Eagle had a standard speech about his gifts and that he had borrowed phrases from it to answer the question.

"So," Rossi said carefully, "you don't represent your so-called talent as God-given? I mean, given that you are the chief prophet of religion."

"Only in the context that every talent is God-given. No, Agent Rossi, I'm no prophet and I didn't get my ability to communicate from some mountaintop confab with the Almighty. And what I bring to this congregation is the insight of a Creation wherein all life-forms celebrate their Creator with joy and confidence."

_Sounds great, means nothing._

As if he had heard her dismissive evaluation, Brother Eagle's whole attitude suddenly shifted. "So, now that the name-rank-serial-number portion of our interview is over, what can this modest congregation and I have done to earn a visit from the world-famous Behavioral Analysis Unit's A-Team?"

Hotch fielded that one. "We've been asked to look into a number of deaths that, on the surface, look like deaths by misadventure. All but one involve an animal."

Brother Eagle's plump little jaw dropped. "All but _one_? Did you miss the bumblebee I sent to Grace Parrish while she was driving?"

The BAU team did a grand job of staying impassive in the face of that admission. Grace Parrish's death was in fact the only death which they had determined not to be animal-related.

"Did you think she just slid into oncoming traffic because she was old and easily confused? Jesus, what are we paying you for, men? And lady," he added. "Get with the project, dudes. Wake up and smell the pheromones. Don't deny me my credit.

"I'm really, really, majorly big-time disappointed with your _sooper-seekrut_ BAU magic so far," he concluded. He propped his head on his hands and grinned at Rossi and Hotchner.

"Do I understand that you're taking credit for all nine of these attacks?" asked Hotch.

"He's a keeper," Brother Eagle said to Rossi as he nodded his head toward Hotchner. "Slow, but he eventually catches on. Potentially an adequate member of your team."

"Do I understand that you're taking credit for all nine of these attacks?" Hotch repeated, his tone even and his face blank.

"Glory, hallelujah, _of course_, you moron! What's the use of sending a signal to the fallen-away if they don't know it's from you?" an exasperated Brother Eagle shouted. "Your problem – and it's quite a poser, I have to admit – will be figuring out how to nail me on them without making a legal and public pronouncement that I can, indeed, talk to all of the living creatures, and that they do my bidding."


	6. Chapter 6

**Disclaimer: These characters (except Brother Eagle) belong not to me, but to CBS and the creators of **_**Criminal Minds**_.

The interview lasted another forty minutes, but nothing of any significance was accomplished on either side.

Finally Aaron Hotchner closed his notebook and said, "Brother Eagle, I suspect that we're not about to make any more progress today. Perhaps we can meet again at another time."

Eagle pointed a furious finger at Hotch. "You," he said, "I'm tired of you. Your little mind can only run on one track at a time. The next time you open your mouth, I'll put some wasps in it. The best part of that one comes when they start tickling the back of your throat, and _icky_ doesn't begin to describe it."

Eagle turned toward Rossi. "Aren't you people going to check my alibi for the days in question? Aren't you going to check travel records, at least mine and I would hope those of my subordinates? Won't you swab me for my DNA and take my fingerprints? Come on, boys, this is why God led you here today. I need you to certify my talent. To demonstrate to the world the range of my gifts."

"You can rest easy," Rossi said with a smile. "You were never much of a suspect. We understand that this is a game for you – but we have serious, full-time, professional Unsubs out there who don't waste our time with parlor tricks and nonsense."

Brother Eagle leaned forward and trained the whole of his intensity, which was considerable, on Rossi. I find it interesting," he said, "that Captain Grumpy-Pants over there, when you strip away the snarl, is just a choirboy sucking up to authority, trying to please the grownups. Whereas you, Agent Rossi, with your warm toothy smile and your soothing eye contact -- and those soft, plump, kissable lips – you're a fuckin' raging river of pissed-off, aren't you, David?"

"This interview is over," Rossi said.

"You think you can just pull up your pants and put your skank back on her leash and walk out of here, don't you?

Garcia could hold her tongue no longer. "Can you speak ten words in a row without being an asshole? For someone who wants us to take your message to the world, you sure don't know much about motivation. And, by the way, I'm afraid of clowns, so if you can conjure up a few, that's just fine. Bring 'em on."

"Afraid of clowns?" Eagle repeated, before Rossi would get a word out. "Then why in the world do you dress like one?

"Agents, I think the only one of you with whom I am prepared to engage is Agent Rossi," he continued. "Ms Garcia and Mr. Hotchner, I'll have to put you in cold storage until at least tomorrow. I hope you had no important engagements this weekend."

Garcia simply stared.

_Exactly how do you propose to keep us?_

He opened the door on his right wall, which revealed a darkened room. "Agents, your chamber awaits. Step right in. Quickly, quickly, now."

Hotch, apparently willing to risk a mouth full of wasps, started to ask Brother Eagle some soothing yet penetrating profiler question – Garcia could tell it by his tone – but Eagle opened another door, the furthest away door on the left, and said, "Cecil, come."

Out lumbered a full-grown tiger, in predator mode. "It's them, sweetums," Brother Eagle said.

"Jesus, God!" Rossi gasped. He leaped from his chair so quickly that he knocked it over. Garcia just squeaked and froze in hers.

Rossi spun and ran for the exit, but the tiger in three muscular bounds overtook him and blocked the door.

David barely breathed as he stumbled backwards to the grouping of armchairs. Brother Servant-or-Serpent appeared in the doorway and asked, "Do you need anything, Brother Eagle?"

"Everything is fine here," said Eagle, "but wait – will you close the door and lock it from your side for the moment?"

Garcia thought that Brother Whoever threw an amused glance toward Brother Eagle, then to Cecil, and then to the agents before he said, "Certainly, sir," and did Eagle's bidding.

Once all of its potential prey had been corralled, the tiger growled, tensed, and pounced upon Aaron Hotchner, who was closest to the storage room, knocking him down and pinning him with a huge paw on his chest. Garcia could see his mind racing, calculating, he may die, but he will die fighting--

--and the tiger roared and sank his teeth into Hotch's left arm.

Rossi shouted. Garcia screamed. Aaron looked stunned -- as though the world had just taken one too many steps in an incomprehensible direction, and his logic circuits had fried.

The tiger backed up, dragging Hotchner with him. As he did so, it became clear that the tiger's fangs had only penetrated the sleeves of Hotch's coat and shirt. It shook him by the arm and dragged him toward the darkened room. He tried to get back on his feet, but the tiger seemed interested only in carrying out its assignment, dragging him half on his ass and half on his knees until he was in the doorway, where the fabric of his sleeve ripped away.

Hotchner stumbled to his feet, staring at the animal, still not understanding what was happening to him. The tiger lowered its head and bumped him firmly across the threshold, where his legs gave way again. This time, he stayed down. He raised his hands in a combination _surrender_ and _back off_ kind of gesture, and panted, "OK. OK. Enough."

David Rossi had, in Garcia's professional opinion, completely lost his shit. He just stood there rubbing his eyes with the heels of his hands, muttering, "Fuck a fucking _duck_. There's just no fucking _end_ to it... no fucking _end_. ..."

Penelope held up her own hands as the tiger turned. "I'm going," she said to it. "See? I'm going into the room all by myself. I don't need any help." Trying to look calm and professional, she dodged Eagle and a scattering of his pet tarantulas who were still munching on dead wasps. She scurried across the office and stepped over the threshold of the storage room. "See? I'm here."

Cecil the tiger turned an extra thirty degrees and roared in Rossi's face, then paced back and forth, its tail thrashing furiously. David was already backed as far as he could go without pressing himself right through the wall. Cecil rose up and planted one forepaw on either side of Rossi's head.

"You'll have to tell me what he wants me to do," Rossi told Brother Eagle.

"He just wants you to stand still and shut up."

"OK," Rossi said meekly.

Brother Eagle turned his attention to the two in the storage room. "The rheostat for the light is right over your head, young lady, yes, there, very good. Now do you observe the the yellow line on the floor? You are not to cross it for any reason at all."

He opened a small door at floor level just past the threshold. Six fairly large snakes slithered out. "These guys aren't a warning system," he said sternly. "They're a deterrent force. They're exceedingly venomous, and you can't reason with them if you get careless or you think you have a really good idea. As long as you stay on your side of the line, they will not molest you."

With that, he shut the door and presumably turned his attentions to Rossi.

Hotch continued to sit just across the line from their reptilian guard, but Garcia stood up and prowled their ten-by-eighteen room. It was plain and utilitarian. A double bed mattress sat on a raised platform. The far corner held a folding card table and two plastic lawn chairs. Her tour ended with the bathroom, which was located almost immediately across from where Hotchner sat. The bathroom had a sink and a commode. On the sink was a sleeve of paper cups. On the back of the toilet were inexpensive towels.

Finally, Garcia sat down on the floor next to Hotch.

"Wow," she said, without enthusiasm. "There's about everything we need for a getaway weekend in South Carolina. You. Me. Snakes."

She saw a sudden flash of dimple. Then a grin. Then both of them fell into one of those _I mustn't laugh now_ traps, the kind that hit you in churches, in sickrooms and at funerals and in hopeless situations, venues where the harder you try to stifle them, the more painful, the more uncontrollable they become. They're rarely about anything that's amusing outside the context of that moment.

And they clung to each other to keep from literally falling over with laughter.

_You. Me. Snakes._


	7. Chapter 7

**Disclaimer: None of the _Criminal Minds_ characters are mine, although I suspect some of them might have more interesting lives if they were.**

**A/N: Hot monkey love for Hotch and Garcia herein. Since it's basically two paragraphs with almost no plumbing details, I believe that I've kept it T-rated. PM me if you disagree and I'll change it.**

An hour of dismal silence passed. It was amazing how two people who communicated for a living could find such a rich and varied selection of things not to talk about.

Hotchner removed his suit coat, tie, and shoes. He rolled up his sleeves and lay down on the near side of the mattress, his head pillowed on his hands. To Garcia, he always looked taller with his coat off, and she wasn't sure why. Maybe it was because the lines of his body were narrower than the lines of the coat. Anyhow, he just lay there and contemplated the ceiling.

She sat down on the other side of the bed. "So," she said, "how are you doing?"

"I've made progress," he replied. "I think."

"As in--?"

Eyes still fixed on the ceiling, he said, "I've moved beyond expecting to wake up any minute, but now I wonder what this will look like in our incident reports."

"Ooh, right." As a tech analyst, Penelope was rarely required to file an incident report. "It won't be pretty."

"No, it won't."

"What will be the worst part?"

Hotchner sighed. "Which 'worst part'? The worst part where we let ourselves get stampeded into giving up our weapons and communications to please some local politician? The worst part where it looks like Brother Eagle does exactly as he says he does? The worst part where I damn near pissed myself because some bugs landed on me? The worst part where we know who killed those people, but if Eagle chooses not to repeat his confession on the record, we'll never convict him? The worst part where we're bodily dragged to Brother Eagle's spare bedroom by a tiger?"

"You're right. It doesn't sound like a potential BAU's Greatest Hits album."

He rolled to his side. "The real 'worst part' is that I can't bring myself to care."

"Care about what?"

"Ordinarily, with even one problem, I'm tied up in knots over what the incident report has to say. But today, I think, 'Oh, that'll be ugly,' because it will be just ... just nasty. But I'm not particularly distressed thinking about the prospect."

"And this calmness is--"

"I know I should be all wound up over this mess, but I'm not, and _that_ should worry me, but it doesn't. It feels paradoxical. And I can stand back at a distance and see the problems, huge problems, but what I'm thinking is _so what_? Penelope, I think I could lie here and go to sleep. Have I given up? Have I lost any edge I ever had?"

Garcia looked away and examined her own feelings. She sensed that she should be outraged at being herded into what amounted to an overnight stay in a really boring prison cell, but she actually felt fairly sanguine about the situation.

"Maybe after wasps and tarantulas and tigers and snakes, a bunch of bureaucrats just doesn't look that scary?" she hazarded.

He stretched and said, "Good point."

She also felt that she would like to be touching Hotch, which was an even more unnerving change. The guy was OK to work with as long as you didn't make any mistakes, but he was neither a hunk nor a snugglebug. He was as prickly physically as he was emotionally, and that was a whole honking boatload of prickly.

So it surprised her almost as much as it surprised Hotchner when she scootched to the center of the bed and said, "Roll over, Toots. Let me give you a back rub."

"Toots?" he repeated, but he was already rolling to his stomach.

"OK, then, roll over, Spike."

But where the unit chief she knew and tolerated would have made sure that professional distance was maintained and reminded her that he was Hotch or Hotchner (maybe 'Aaron' in some circumstances), this evil twin Hotch –maybe benign twin Hotch -- just muttered, "Whatever."

She considered her back rubs to be one of her best kept secrets. Within a minute, Hotch was mumbling little pleasure/pain sounds into the mattress. When she had thoroughly massaged his back muscles, she made a leisurely side trip to the lower arms, and thence to upper arms and back to the main course for another complete run down his back.

When she was done, she leaned down and whispered in his ear, "How was that?"

He sighed, "You turned me into mush."

"Good," she said. "That was the objective."

And just like that, he was asleep.

And just like that, still wearing her shoes and her hat, she fell asleep next to him.

A couple hours later, she woke up disoriented and embarrassed, after a dream that featured Brother Eagle and his parishioners, or whatever he called them, singing "Tomorrow Belongs to Me," from _Cabaret_. She got off the mattress and went to the bathroom. She washed her hands, inspected her makeup, and drank a paper cup of tap water.

When she returned, she opened her purse to refresh her lipstick, and a bunch of dead wasps tumbled out.

_Oh, yeah. Forgot that._

Nevertheless, she swept them back in. She also found her low-tech backup MP3 player, the one so basic she hadn't had to turn it in at the gates of the Caller's complex. She popped her buds into her ears and cranked up some tunes.

After a few minutes, Hotch tapped on her shoulder and asked what she was listening to. She unplugged her ear buds and let the tinny little speaker squeak out her play list. Two or three tunes in, she found herself sort of dancing.

And then, she was dancing with him. It wasn't a chick-flick movie thing where it's _Oh,_ _Aaron Hotchner is a terrific swing dancer_! It was more like, that he could swing dance at all was a surprise, and any concomitant expertise [and not much, at that] was just the icing on the cake. Although she suspected that "Zoot Suit Riot" had been permanently imprinted with this rendition.

Slow dancing was better for him, since it could be reduced to making out to music, which pretty much described his performance with her.

The first time he leaned down to kiss her, she actually thought _My God, Aaron Hotchner is going to kiss me. Why don't I think this is pathologically weird? Why am I not freaking out?_

That first kiss was revelatory: soft, sweet, and with his mouth firmly closed. She thought it was just because it was the first, but, no. Hotch had teeth and a tongue, but his kisses remained restrained, even innocent.

After a few minutes, Penelope was ready to relocate to the mattress and see what happened there, but Hotch seemed perfectly content to stand there with their clothes on, showering her with his chaste schoolboy kisses.

Finally, she couldn't resist asking,"Do you always kiss like that?"

"Mmm?"

"Mouth closed."

"I guess so. It grosses Haley out and ... she's been pretty much ... anyhow, I've never learned how to--"

She had her mouth engaged, ready to offer Hotchner kissing lessons, but she finally heard the apology, the embarrassment in his voice. Instead of saying that, she brushed his hair back. "The reason I asked," she purred, "is what you're doing is dead sexy, so keep it up."

And it was dead sexy, in an I'm-molesting-a-Cub-Scout kind of way.

"Shhh," he breathed, and for just an instant, he moved the front of his body deliberately against hers. There was no mistaking his interest.

"All right," she cooed. She dared to slide her hands down from his waist to his hips, then onto his buns and he made a small appreciative sound against her hair.

_So maybe now we relocate to the bed?_

But no. "Take that stupid hat off," he whispered.

"What?"

"Your hat. Take it off. All of those fucking flowers. It's like feeling up my grandmother."

"Whoa, you sure know how to turn a girl on," she said, failing to keep the giggle out of her voice.

He pushed hard against her, and groaned, "Look at what you're doing to me."

She pushed back and growled, "Talk dirty to me. Talk dirty to your granny."

"Lose the fucking flowers."

"Ahh, such a toughass, Spike."

"You think I'm kidding, don't you?"

Well, yes, and _yes_. Regardless, she unpinned her hat and removed the other cloth dahlias. She tossed them a few feet from where she and Hotch stood.

"OK, Spike, I'm de-flowered. Now give your granny some loving."

"Spike and Granny, huh? I can live with that."

"Good," she growled, "because there aren't a whole lot of – whoa, oh jeez, don't stop, don't stop that, don't, don't, that's just – just – wow."

"Up," he said softly. She was still trying to figure out when she would get a chance to take her panties off. "Up," he repeated, his hands on her waist.

No, he can't mean ... that's for skinny girls ....

Finally she took him at his word. She jumped up and wrapped her legs around his waist, and he braced her up against the wall (just like that totally hot scene from the first _Godfather_ movie!) and it would have been amazingly sexy if she hadn't still been wearing underpants. But moments later, she felt his fingers moving the crotch of her panties over to one side. Then he shifted her weight and whispered, "Oh," and she was, as they say, sliding down the pole.

"_Oh," indeed. Majorly yummy._

When she came, she came not so much from any physical stimuli, but because of that erogenous zone between her ears saying, _OMG, OMG, this is Aaron-frickin'-Hotchner nailing me to the wall!_ And she squealed and clamped her legs tighter around him and practically drilled her fingernails through his shoulders, back to front.

And he just kept on going, wearing this smug secret little smile, like, OK, I may kiss like a ten-year-old, but I know exactly what I'm doing here.

Shortly thereafter, he shuddered and groaned and his coordination went all to hell for a few seconds and it was her turn to smile.

_Because I know exactly what I'm doing, too, Spike-O._


	8. Chapter 8

**Disclaimer: All of the BAU characters are the intellectual property of CBS and the powers that be at _Criminal Minds_.**

They briefly had a guest about four hours into their imprisonment, or whatever it was. The door swung open, and Brother Serpent-or-Servant showed up, with Cecil the tiger tagging along beside him like a hunting dog. Brother Whoever's face reflected no surprise – in fact, no interest – in the fact that Garcia and Hotchner were spooned together and only partially dressed. He lugged in a shrink-wrapped case of bottled water, set it just over the yellow line, turned, and left without a word.

"I'm devastated," Garcia said. "He didn't tell us that we're naughty. I have apparently lost my ability to shock people."

"Maybe he isn't a people," Hotch said drowsily. "Maybe he's just another living creature Brother Eagle controls."

"Do you really think so?"

"No."

She considered that. "Too bad. It would be just deliciously creepy."

Hotchner mussed her hair. "You're a lunatic, Penelope. You should be way over your lifetime tolerance of creepiness by now. I certainly am. One more incident of weirdness and I may self-destruct."

She leaned back against him. This relaxed, open man was tough to reconcile with the normal Hotchner. Although everyone knew that he was capable of dazzling smiles, on the job he generally presented a persona as warm and welcoming as bloodstains on a dungeon door.

Ah, and then there was the kissing problem: He obviously had the basics. He had already demonstrated a couple delicious things he could do with his mouth, so apparently Haley just had issues with _her_ mouth. He had a healthy appreciation of what her lips could do for his nipples, as well as vice versa. And that was just the stuff above the waist. On everything but kissing, he was both confident and, um, talented.

He tightened his arms around her. She ran her fingers over his surprisingly furry forearms; they felt warm and comforting. She raised one of his arms and nibbled on his (equally furry) fingers and the palm of his hand. He gave a contented sigh and snuggled a little closer to her.

She took one of his fingers in her mouth and sucked it. He gave a low growl and said, "Granny, honey, don't go starting anything you don't intend to finish."

She released his hand. "Where do you think David Rossi is now? What do you think he's doing?"

"I hope that wherever he is, he's nailing down an airtight case against Brother Eagle. Preferably one that doesn't require me to testify that he can create wasps out of thin air.

"Hey, do you want some water?" he added, sitting up.

"Is it cold?"

He got to his feet. "I'll see about that."

She watched him pad across the room in his boxers and his socks. She thought she had figured out why he looked taller in his shirtsleeves. His suit coat gave him a boxier, broader appearance, whereas he was actually fairly slender, which her eyes interpreted as elongated.

He crouched down and began tearing away shrink-wrap. "I think this is room temperature," he said.

"Ew. Then forget it. I'll take it from the tap."

He straightened, with several bottles in his hands. "Do you want me to fill one of these from the tap for you?"

"Thank you! That would be sweet of you."

"That's me, all right. Everybody calls me Sweet Aaron."

She gave a sensual growl. "Not me, buddy. You're my Sweet Spike."

He bowed. "At your service, Gran."

Penelope noted that their relationship, whatever it might be, had already passed the point where a user, someone just faking rapport, would lose interest. Plenty of the guys in her life had vanished in the first hour or so after intimacy – even just a little hot kissing.

_But where can he go, anyway? We're stuck here. That's probably the deciding factor. Once we're out of here, it'll be all awkward looks and silences, and both of us actively avoiding the other. And the way life goes, I'll probably be the one who gets transferred to some other unit._

By the time he returned from the bathroom with two bottles filled with cold water for her, Penelope had started actively looking for signs that whatever kind of relationship they had stumbled into a few hours ago was already crumbling.

ô ô

Sleepy silly talk hit first. [Who's your favorite Muppet? Which _Breakfast Club_ kid were you? Which James Bond movie is the coolest?] They also dozed on and off; the two of them lying there side-by-side, lightly holding hands.

Penelope woke up first, to see Brother Servant-or-Serpent standing at the foot of the mattress and smiling.

"Brother Eagle wants one of you to come and talk to Agent Rossi," he anounced.

Hotch rolled to his back. "Probably me?" he sighed to Garcia.

"Probably," she sighed back. She leaned over and kissed his cheek. "Give him my best."

"Of course."

"Do I need my shoes?" Hotch asked.

"No." Brother Whoever collected the empty bottles for recycling as Hotch pulled on his trousers and his tee shirt. He blew a kiss to her before he padded off after Brother Whoever, into the bright light of Brother Eagle's personal area.

It was freaky the way the snakes moved aside for Brother Whozit, then slid back into alert mode. She wondered whether there was a lock on the door to supplement the reptilian guard.

ô ô

Ten minutes later, the snakes slithered to the side again. Garcia watched the door carefully. No, it seemed to have nothing in the way of a lock. She wasn't even sure it had a latch.

The light was no longer on in Brother Eagle's office. Hotch came in past the yellow line quietly, turned and watched Brother Whoever depart.

He turned again and walked slowly over to the mattress. He mumbled, "Hi," lay down somewhat stiffly on the mattress, sighed, and draped one forearm across his eyes.

_Well, that's done it. Ten minutes with Rossi and I've outrun my shelf life._

"How's Rossi?" she asked. It was the most neutral thing she could think of to say.

"God only knows," Hotch said in a weary voice.

_You got tired of me that fast?_

She sat up and shrugged into her bra. She didn't really need it to refill her water bottle, but little sore spots in her spirit called out for protective covering while they wept. As she turned away, she noticed a dark blotch on Hotchner's tee shirt. When she looked more closely, she saw that it was blood.

And she saw that his lip was split and he had the beginnings of a major black eye. "Shit, Aaron, what happened to you? Who did that?"

In a small, confused voice, he answered, "Dave Rossi."


	9. Chapter 9

**Disclaimer: BAU Personnel are the property of CBS and the creators of _Criminal Minds_. More's the pity, because I think I could show them a pretty good time.**

"Hold still," she said, moving his forearm away from his face. "Come on, let me take a better look. Sit up." She got to her feet. "Stay," she directed, and she crossed over to the rheostat. On a scale of one to seven, after their first lovemaking, they had dialed the illumination down to a four, and later on, to a two. Now she cranked it up to full power.

When she returned, she lifted up his tee shirt. Two small bruises were developing there, and one large one. She tugged at a sleeve of his shirt. "Take it off, sweetness, and roll over," she said.

In a section of her mind that had nothing better to do with its time and brainpower than to look for things to agonize over, she observed that she had been talking to him like a puppy: _Sit. Stay. Roll over_.

He peeled off his shirt and lay back down. There were several small red patches on his back, sides and arms that were clearly bruises in the making.

"David did all this?" she asked.

"Yes." His tone was utterly neutral.

_And why are you so freakin' calm about this? Where is your outrage?_

"OK, I'm having trouble understanding what's going on here, Hotch. You got called to go talk to David, right?"

"Yes."

"Where is David?"

He closed his eyes, orienting himself. "The door at the rear of the office." He gestured vaguely in that direction.

"Is his room like ours?"

"Almost."

"Tell me about it."

He drew a breath. "The same dimensions, but laid out differently. The mattress is oriented against the far wall, the narrower wall. The table and lawn chairs are at the front, like the way Eagle's office was set up. He has a drawer in the side of his – platform thing. He had his card table unfolded and set out. He was sitting at the table when I came in. He had a wet towel on the table. I think he was using it to keep cool or hydrated or something."

"Rheostat, bottled water, no windows, and the Snake National Guard?"

"Um." He stared out into space. "Yes. The water was a different brand, and he had more than one sheet for his mattress. I think I remember the rheostat being in the same location as ours. And the walls are gray-blue rather than gray-green. No windows." A shadow of a smile crossed his features. "Snake National Guard."

She felt as if she were a profiler and she was questioning a victim. In a way, of course, that was exactly what she was, but she was only guessing at what questions to ask. Hotchner, on the other hand, even stunned and confused as he seemed, demonstrated his usual exceptional powers of observation.

"It was drier in there than it is in here," he said. "Although this is still pretty dry. I guess it's the air filters."

"It has a red cap," he said, tapping the dark blue cap of their Demarest Springs brand water, whatever that was, some local outfit, probably.

"So you walked into the room by yourself?"

"No, Brother Serpent--"

"That's his name? I couldn't tell whether Eagle was saying Serpent or Servant."

He frowned. "You know, I may have heard wrong. Snakes have kind of affected my interpretations. Could be Servant, easily. Anyway, whichever brother he is, he walked in just ahead of me and then moved over to the wall on left side of the room, the one that would be to your left if you were standing in the doorway, facing the mattress."

He chugged more than half of his water and sighed with satisfaction.

"OK, so you're in the room with Serpent and David. Serpent is by the wall, David is sitting at the table in the, um, foreground? Does it make sense to say it that way?"

"Foreground? Sure, OK." He closed his eyes again. "David got up. He walked over to me, and he seemed, well, to me it looked as if he was in some kind of distress. When he got--" Hotchner gestured feebly. "-into my personal space, I guess, I said hello, started to ask him if he was being treated well. Didn't finish saying it, hardly began. And he punched me in the stomach."

"No warning at all?"

"Not that I saw. He came over and ... pow."

She leaned forward. "And what did you do?"

Garcia's memory sailed back to the time she had been shot. She recalled that she had hated answering their questions because it just put her back in that bad place, emotionally. She wondered whether her interrogation was pushing Hotch back to a place he didn't want to see, or he was so accustomed to the process that it didn't bother him.

"What did I do?" he echoed. "I dropped. I wasn't expecting it, so I just – doubled over and went down."

"And then?"

"He grabbed my hair and I hunkered over with my arms over my head. He was angry," Hotch said, as if that were a sufficient explanation. "He was yelling. He was kicking me, so I kept trying to protect my face and head."

That was so absolutely unlike anything she had seen from Rossi in his two years with the BAU that Penelope had to make an effort to picture what Hotch said had occurred.

"What happened then?"

Hotchner sighed deeply. "After that it's kind of a blur. He kept kicking me, he backed off over to the table for something, water or to wipe his face or whatever, and I was able to stand up. I was trying to catch my breath, ask him about the things he was saying--"

"Wait a minute. He was talking when he was kicking you?"

Hotch finished his water. "Yes."

"What was he saying?"

"Useless," he replied. "Incompetent. Prima donna. Coward."

Garcia shook her head as if to rid herself of something clogging her ears or her brain or both. "He was calling you those names while he kicked you?"

"Uh, yeah." Absolutely no trace of any kind of hurt or anger or even surprise on his face.

_Just the facts, ma'am._

"And what did you say to him?"

He hugged himself absently. He seemed to be losing his focus. "Ah, just things like _stop_ and _what's this about_ and _don't do that_."

"What happened when you got up?" she asked.

"He came back over and I could see that he was going to hit me again, but before I could duck or run Brother Serpent got behind me and held my arms. And David got a couple licks in, but then he cut his knuckles on my teeth and he--" Hotchner visibly fumbled for the right word. "--He fell back to the mattress. Looked at me angrily. His face was just – a dark, dark red."

"What happened next?"

"Brother Serpent went over and helped Dave, comforted him, or maybe just calmed him down. Then he – Serpent, not Rossi – said 'Let's go,' and he parted the snakes and I came back here."

"_Parted the snakes."_

She got a mental picture of Brother Whatever parting the snakes like Moses parted the waters, and she tried not to smile.

Penelope stared at the unit chief. It wasn't just Rossi's behavior that was way off. Aaron Hotchner was simply not wired to curl up and take it. The real Aaron Hotchner would have exploded with the first _Useless_. Or _Incompetent_. Or _Prima donna_. And certainly at _Cowardly_.

And the real David Rossi would never use any of those adjectives to describe Hotch, let alone strike out at him physically, because, frankly, in one-on-one combat, Aaron would easily eat Rossi's lunch.

So. Since these are not clones, something has happened to them to make them act out of character. Like David's fury and violence. Like Aaron's passivity and lack of focus.

Like Aaron's inability to get very upset over the way the interview had gone with Eagle.

Like Aaron's making wild weasel love with her, so totally out of character for both of them.

She blushed brick red in humiliation.

Had Brother Eagle controlled them into their intimacies? Can it be that only an external pressure would motivate Aaron to find her attractive enough to put the moves on?

_When we get home, will he feel revulsion rather than lust when he thinks of me? Will he be motivated to bleach his weenie to remove any remnants of my sexuality?_

_If so, I will kill Brother Eagle. I don't care how many venomous little buddies he has in his menagerie; I will cut them down when they get in my way, and I will kill him_.


	10. Chapter 10

**Disclaimer: All BAU personnel are the intellectual property of CBS and the creators of _Criminal Minds_. They just visit my imagination from time to time.**

_This is so crazy that it wouldn't even make good fiction. Or mediocre fiction, for that matter. I need to reboot reality._

She stood up again and walked over to the yellow line, or at least as close as she could get to it without actually coming within striking distance of one of those sum-bitchin' snakes.

_I am an FBI agent out in the field. I am standing here in yellow T-straps, a powder-blue lace-and-Lycra sports bra and matching bikini panties. Aaron Hotchner, with whom I have over the last few hours enjoyed several flavors of spicy-hot intimacy, and I are being held prisoner in a religious facility, as is David Rossi. The guards here are snakes and tigers. _

_Jeez. Nobody is their right mind could dream this up._

_So – am I dreaming?_

She heard Hotch rising from the mattress. He came over to her, wrapped his left arm around her and squeezed. "Hi, Granny," he said in a gentle voice.

_Oh, and Aaron's in his boxers and his socks, and he's actually looking pretty damn good, considering his age and his years in a high-stress job._

"Hi, Spike-O," she replied. She stretched upwards and kissed his jaw. Then she picked up his wrist off her shoulder and checked his watch. Since Penelope kept time via her (surrendered at the gate) cell phone and PDA, his watch was currently their only clock. "It's past four-thirty," she said. "We've been here more than six hours. Think the rest of the team has started to worry about us yet? You know, that team that's located inconveniently at Quantico, and not here? Because--"

"Is that a cottonmouth?" Hotch interrupted.

"What? Oh, that. No frickin' clue. I recognize the two rattlesnakes. The others are just creepy-looking plain vanilla generic brand evil and terrible and yucky venomous snakes."

"Not that you're opinionated."

"Nope. Not a bit."

"Those two are definitely copperheads," Hotchner said. "I'm pretty sure that one is a cottonmouth. I don't know what the other one is. So at least five of the six are venomous. Brother Eagle seems to have concentrated on 'living creatures' that instill fear in people, And I think that it was critical for him to find some form that each of us feared. Me and the wasps. David and the tiger. You and the snakes. Or, as you phrased it earlier: _You. Me. Snakes_."

They exchanged grins and the ragged edges of giggles.

_Damn. It was still funny._

Garcia recalled that when they first entered the room, Hotch had sat down on the floor immediately beside the yellow line and had not stirred at all when the snakes were let out. "Reptiles don't do it for you?" she asked.

"They're cool. I had snakes as pets when I was a kid."

"But no wasps."

"No stingers. I wouldn't even go barefoot where there were dandelions or violets or clover. I was afraid I would step on a bee."

"But you had snakes."

"I did. I even had a seven-foot anaconda when I was in junior high. Her name was Farrah."

She eyed him sideways. "Farrah."

"Oh, come on. I was twelve."

She rolled her eyes. "Well, anyway, we need to figure out what we're doing and what we need to do next. And I should get you a cold compress for that eye."

"It's nothing," he said. "Barely more than cosmetic."

Garcia snorted. His eye was already almost completely closed from swelling, but who was she to interfere with anyone's minimum daily macho requirement? She patted his hand gently and excused herself to hit the ladies' room to, among other things, fix her hair and makeup.

She hadn't even dried her face yet when Hotch knocked. "This platform has a drawer in it, too," he said through the door. "It has a stack of folded flat sheets."

"Well, that explains why David had more than one sheet."

"It does." She heard the clatter of an aluminum-and-mesh lawn chair being opened – or at least Hotch was trying to open it. Long after the chair should have been opened she heard the scrape and rattle on tile flooring continue.

_What's he doing? Kicking it around?_

When she finally emerged, looking at least a little refreshed, Hotchner knelt on the floor behind the upended lawn chair. He had several sheets wrapped around his left arm. He held his tie in his left hand, which he dangled over and among the snakes, watching their reactions intently.

"Interesting," he said. "It isn't until I lean over into yellow-line space that they pay me any attention. Just my hand or even my arm, they ignore – even when I smack them on the head with the tie."

She resisted the temptation to tell him, _get away from them, it creeps me out just to watch you getting so close to them_. Instead she said, "I had no idea you could profile reptiles."

"I'm a man of many talents." He leaned his upper torso over the chair again, and two snakes struck at his sheet-swathed arm. "See how they--"

"Stop it!" she snapped. "Get away from them. You keep on playing with them, you're going to get bitten and poisoned to death or something."

"Actually, it's venom, not poison." He sounded almost petulant. "Poison is something you ingest or inha--"

"Stop it! It doesn't creep me out any less if you imitate Reid!"

He seemed not to hear her. "Can you grab a bottle of water and open it for me?"

"Hotch, that's something I meant to tell you. I think maybe--"

"I'm on the same track," he said, his attention still fixed on his little snaky friends. "There's something in the water."

"Like endorphins or something," Garcia finished.

"Pheromones, more likely. That would explain why David's and my behavior has been uncharacteristic, but you only drank tap water, so you're pretty much the same Penelope Garcia."

"Do you think so? Because I think I've been kind of inappropriate."

He glanced at her quickly, then seemed to grow more absorbed in his snake experiment, "The water?" he prompted.

_Did I just say something wrong?_

She unscrewed the cap and handed it to him.

"OK, boy," Hotch said warmly, even affectionately. "You're our guinea pig, fella. Bet your mama never expected you to be a mammal. Especially one that would ordinarily be your lunch, huh, buddy?" He held the bottle in his right hand and poured its half of its contents over one of the snakes.

"You know, you're as creepy with those frickin' snakes as frickin' Brother Eagle is with his frickin' tarantulas."

"It's a matter of perspective," he replied with a shrug, pouring out the rest of the water.

_No. It's not my imagination. I've said something wrong, and his tone has cooled with me._

Unable to watch snakes any longer, she returned to the mattress. She removed the old sheet and put on a fresh one with tidy hospital corners. Then, with a discouraged look toward Hotchner, she picked up her skirt and jacket and tank top and shook them out. When she realized that Hotch wasn't looking over at her at all, she sighed heavily.

She slid her skirt on over her head and shimmied it down to her waist.

_Way to screw up yet another relationship, Garcia._


	11. Chapter 11

**Disclaimer: Not mine, yada-yada-yada, all CBS and the producers of _Criminal Minds_. But see how much fun they would have, how much richer their little lives would be, if they came over to my place?**

"Hey, Garcia," Hotchner said, from the reptilian sector of their room. "Look. It's working already."

She looked up, gasped, "Holy fucking shit!" and leaped backwards onto the mattress, scooting along in reverse across it as fast as her legs would take her.

Hotch, looking entirely too cheerful, walked toward her carrying a four-foot snake. "Look at this!" he said, in evident delight. The snake in question curled with apparent serenity around his hands and forearms. "I don't know how long it'll last, but we have a pretty passive little cottonmouth here, don't we? My goodness, yes, don't we?" That last was directed at the snake, in the fatuously affectionate tones that normal people, in Penelope's estimation, reserved for puppies and kittens and bunnies.

And, OK, maybe a few ferrets.

"Get it away from me! It's horrible!" Garcia cried, spewing adjectives almost like dry heaves. "How can you do that, so slimy and sneaky and icky, and nasty, slimy, evil tongue always sticking out, fluttering around--"

"Jesus, Grans, you sound like Haley."

She stopped dead. _Oh, yeah. Haley. Tongues._ "Oh, that was just plain unnecessary, Hotchner."

Hotchner rubbed his nose against the snake's snout. "We'll have to put you back," he told it in low, soothing tones. "Fair is fair. She didn't wave any wasps at us, so we won't even show her that you aren't slimy."

He then followed up on his statement, carrying the mellow cottonmouth back to its guard post. He set it down among its fellows and clucked and made kissing noises at it. He righted the upturned lawn chair and collected the sheets he had used for armor.

He brought the sheets over to the mattress, dumped them, and began to refold them neatly. "I gather I've pissed you off," he said in a voice that sounded casual – but she knew him well, and there was nothing casual about it. He had all his profiler spines and antennae sticking out.

She scrambled to her feet. "With the frickin' snake? You better believe you pissed me off, Hotchner."

Still all profiler on her, way too smooth for her tastes, he said, "You started getting dressed before I brought the snake over."

"I sure did, sweetness. You did notice, didn't you, that I was failing to maintain Bureau standards in grooming and presentation?" She didn't pull it off quite as cleverly as she hoped. The statement lost some of its force and credibility when addressed to a superior who wore even less than she did.

He just stood there with that professionally neutral expression. Boxers. Black socks. Black eye. Fat lip. Hair in serious need of a comb. An impressive collection of bruises growing ever more colorful on his arms, legs, and torso. Five o'clock shadow that on him, frankly, was closer to an it's-almost-lunchtime shadow. Only Aaron Hotchner could have all that working against him and still look like a Supervisory Special Agent in Charge.

Maybe it was bureaucratic pheromones.

"Nevertheless, the point here," he said, "is that we have a means to control the snakes."

_Oh. Yeah._

Feeling all too conscious of her failure to finish college, she admitted, "I didn't know that snakes drink water."

"They bathe in it, too," he said, "and soak in it to maintain their body temperature. And they poop in it. Or am I drifting into TMI territory?"

"Yeah. Yeah, I think so."

"Sorry for the 'poop' thing. I talk to Jack about snakes sometimes, and it's affected my vocabulary."

"But back to controlling snakes," she said, "what did you think when Rossi was beating on you?"

"Wh-- Oh, I see where you're going. I knew that I could take him. Knew that I probably could talk him down. But my instincts weren't under my control. I knew it wasn't a normal response for me even while I was doing it, but – you learn to trust your instincts on this job. So I assumed that I had picked up some subliminal signal that prompted me to--" His working eye narrowed. "--That sounds lame."

"No, it doesn't," she assured him. "We spend years learning to override our instincts, then when we're at the top of our game, we come back to depend on them again." She would have felt prouder of that bit of wisdom had she not stolen it word-for-word from BAU training materials.

She bent down and slid the hat pin out of her hat, keeping it out of Hotch's sight. She then began to inch closer to him. When she was just a couple feet from him, she gave what she hoped was a threatening shout and jabbed at him with the four-inch hat pin.

He leaped backward, raised his hands defensively, and said, "Don't do that!"

"OK, now, that's trippy," she said. She had expected him either to seize her wrist and disarm her, or to stand there completely impassive as she stabbed him. She had seen him respond in both of those ways in various confrontations.

Clearly, he recognized it, too. "Which animal behavior does this come from?" he asked. "I'm blanking out here. Other than 'playing possum.'"

"Jeez, I don't know. Lower level dogs and wolves demonstrating submission to the alpha?"

"Good," Hotchner said. "Some primates, too. Thanks. So we have a model for conciliation as a survival strategy. And even though I know intellectually that I can't trust my instincts right now, my gut reaction is to fold in the face of a show of force." He glanced at his watch. "And I had, what was it, three bottles of water? And I'm still folding, forty minutes after my last drink."

"Taking into account your body size," Penelope added, "and your metabolism. Don't snakes have a low metabolism as part of that whole cold-blooded thing?"

"Right again." He picked up the folded sheets and tossed them toward the Snake National Guard. "We'll have to watch their behavior and see how long it lasts."

"You're going back to play with the snakes again." It was a statement, not a question.

"Unless you would prefer--"

"No, no. I wouldn't think of depriving you of the opportunity. I'll busy myself thinking of what we do once we're past the passive snakes. Too bad we can't just hold people at bay with my hat pin and force them to drink our water."

Unexpectedly he pulled her into a tight embrace. "We'll get through this," he said, scattering his little Cub Scout kisses like rose petals on her eyes and her forehead. And the miserable son of a bitch was so hot, so sweet, that she caved in all over again.

She ran her hands all over his back, his shoulders, his chest, sort of trying to miss the bruised areas, but not obsessed over it. "Inhibitions," she finally murmured into an ear she was nibbling. "I seem to have misplaced mine again."

"Interesting coincidence, isn't it?" he murmured back. "Do you think we're being monitored?"

She froze, all her passion dissipating like fog with the sunlight. "That would make some weird sense," she said. "If someone thinks we're beginning to plot an escape, we get – distracted?"

"And we would have no reason to suspect that we're being – manipulated," he said, his voice dropping even lower, "if we're acting on impulses that we already had naturally, already knew about."

Another freeze, this one of a different kind. "Do you mean," she began cautiously, "that the guy-thing sex drive is just so generally powerful that it automatically kicks in?"

"Probably."

"So – I could have been, like, Erin Strauss, and you would still have wanted to pork me?" Her voice was still soft, but the snarl in it was clear.

He backed off from her, an expression of horror on hi face. "Sit down," he whispered. She resisted him for a few seconds, and finally perched on the edge of the mattress.

"Penelope, I'm so sorry," he began, his voice barely audible. "Strauss wanted you to check on this computer thing, and – this is my fault. I convinced her that you could do a better job if you were down here, on site."

"What are you saying?"

"I'm saying that I talked her into sending you down with me and Dave because I hoped – I thought – there would be time for us to, to connect." He drew his mouth into a tight line. "Because we don't get much chance to connect personally at Quantico." He took both her hands in his. "It was selfishness on my part, and--"

She jerked her hands free. "Because I was on some kind of list of people you haven't screwed yet, or because Friday is Freak Day, or--"

"Because you're beautiful?" His face was in full flush, and he was having trouble keeping his voice low. "Because you're so smart that you scare the shit out of me? Because you're brave and funny and loyal and goofy and compassionate and--" He swallowed hard. "Amazingly hot?"

"Oh, Spike," she whimpered, blinking back unexpected tears, "that's just, just the sweetest – come here, damn it, Snake Boy."


End file.
